Swahili 101: How to say hello (just say everything!)

The one thing a phrasebook won't tell you about Swahili, or at least Zanzibar Swahili, is that they do greetings in a BIG way here. By which I mean, if you're with anyone you might remotely be acquainted with it's completely acceptable to say pretty much every greeting you can think of. So you get to learn your greetings.

Here's an example (with rough translations).

A: No problems? (Hujambo)

B: No problems.

A: Wassup?

B: I'm cool.

A: How've things been lately?

B: fine. How's home?

A: good. Are the kids fine?

B: they're fine. How's the village?

A: good. How are you this morning?

B: fine.

A: good?

B: very! And you, are the kids good?

A: they're all good.

B: thanks to God!

And now you can move on with the day

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When it comes to saying goodbye, it's a different matter. Don't be surprised if the person on the other end of the phone answers your question with "ok" and hangs up. Face to face, goodnight often works, and goodbye for semi formal situations, or see you.

But don't skimp on the hellos until proven otherwise!!!

Work is pus: adventures in multilingualism #1

Thanks to a big chunk of my schooling and way too much time talking to myself around the house, I like to think of Indonesian as my second language.

So tonight when I was cramming for an upcoming adventure that I think might require some different vocabulary to my usual "I would like three tomatoes and half a kilo of rice please", I learnt something cool:

WORK IS PUS.

Explanation:

English 'pus' = 'usaha' in Swahili

'Usaha' means 'work' in Indonesian.

And that, my friends, is why work is pus.

(And also why you shouldn't assume a word is a cognate just because it looks and sounds the same. I thought a jail was a church for precisely that reason....)